


Caught between a rune and a hard place

by TheRatsAreListening



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: I only tagged it like this in case i intend to continue it, It's a roleplay prompt but i was proud of it, Low Chaos Corvo, M/M, Mute or selectively mute Corvo. Not Sure Yet., This is technically Gen and rated E, and i gotta post SOME dishonored here, ask me in the comments, but this work has not been intentionally abandoned, eventually, i have a whole headcanon on why daud would know it, serkonan sign language, since thats what my username is referencing, the author is majorly depressed and currently not writing, which is unlikely
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-18
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:42:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24787150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRatsAreListening/pseuds/TheRatsAreListening
Summary: One day I looked at my friend and went "hey what if instead of the confrontation (or non-confrontation) we get, Corvo recruits Daud to help save Emily (since this is his fault, anyway, and Daud clearly wants Some Sort of Confrontation with Corvo, but Corvo would rather not give him what he wants)?" So it became a roleplay prompt, but I'm very proud of it so here you go. Either they will let me publish the full thing or I might write my own version in parallel. Or you may never see anything else on this again. Who's to say? Don't hold your breath.Yes, I changed the title. I have nothing to say for myself.
Relationships: Corvo Attano/Daud, knifecrow
Comments: 54
Kudos: 56





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Critiques are fine but don't @me about that one sentence I repeat twice being disruptive because that is on Purpose.  
> Also I just realized Ao3 was counting this as finished b/c of how i added chapters to it sorry for the false advertising y'all

The Void is a bridge summoned into existence purely by one’s willingness to risk its absence as one steps off the ledge. Or, in the case of the Whaler Corvo has been watching, backflips off a rooftop. He’s been observing them ever since he got out of his flimsy prison. He’s had no other choice. They’re scattered all through the flooded district like ants. They would likely kill him on sight, or at the very least, they would do anything they might need to in order to stop him from reaching Daud. Which is a problem.

Between their relatively small frames, the stunts they like to pull and the way he’s seen them play with the hounds, Corvo has been left with the impression that some of them are young. Really young. And for all the rage he wants to harbor towards whoever enabled Daud to kill Jessamine, he can’t bring himself to hurt them. So he fires sleep dart after sleep dart, times them all neatly so his targets fall softly into the shadows, and by the time anyone would notice they’re gone, there is nobody left to notice. 

He’s just run out when he sneaks his way into a dilapidated building off of some unsteady scaffolding, and he feels _genuine relief_ wash over him as Daud’s own stash reveals itself. They're a slightly different shape, a bit too wide and too long to feel right, but after fumbling with them for a little bit, he gets them to work. There’s also a note in the trunk he found them in about not using them to avoid collateral damage. That is the difference between the two of them, Corvo supposes. He waits for the assassins patrolling the area to turn around, fires two darts in quick succession, and clears the wooden banister he’s been hiding behind just in time to stop the second Whaler from falling into the dropped sword of the first one. He lays them down gently and moves on, making a note of exactly how much this different configuration throws off his aim, so he can compensate. It's probably worse over longer distances, but now is not the time to worry about it.

His heart almost stops when one of them materializes in front of him, like grainy ash pulling together into a solid form, but he doesn’t notice Corvo at all. He just makes his way through the double glass door and starts talking. 

It’s Daud’s voice that answers. He would know it anywhere now. It’s been swimming in his head, louder than the song of the runes or the howls and screeches of the river krusts or the hacking cough of weepers, ever since he first heard him speak. 

“I know what it felt like to shove a blade into your Empress.”

Corvo wants to ask: “What _did_ it feel like? Was it worth it?” But he’s not sure he wants to know exactly how much, or how little, Jessamine’s life was worth to this man. He makes his way inside and up to what looks like Daud’s sleeping quarters. Over the hum of a bone charm in the mud somewhere, and a rune far below, he can hear Daud talking at an audiograph machine. How easy would it be to jump down, take advantage of that split-second’s worth of hesitation it would grant him, and kill Daud right here? There’s a key right next to him, hanging on the side of the makeshift desk, that could get Corvo out and back on his way much easier than catching the plague train. The Void keeps pointing it out to him. It would only take a second.

But then, over the hum of a bone charm in the mud somewhere, and a rune far below, Daud says something.

He says “I’d give back all the coin if I could.” He says “No-one should have to kill an Empress.”

 _You didn’t have to,_ Corvo thinks. _You chose to._ Something about the sickening anger that it sparks inside him is distinctively puerile, but that doesn’t diminish it whatsoever. 

The silent mechanism of his sword extends the blade, and Corvo holds onto the pommel so hard he can feel his heartbeat against the metal. This would be so easy for him.

But would it not also be easy for Daud? 

A lot of things are worse than death. The Pendleton twins know something about that now. And he’s heard the Whalers question why Daud would throw Corvo’s gear out instead of using it himself. He’s read the note to Overseer Franklin. But he really hasn’t had much time, until now, to process that, from someone like Daud, this level of stupidity would _have_ to be deliberate.

Maybe he doesn’t want Corvo to kill him, but he very clearly wants Corvo to _confront_ him. Or wants to confront Corvo without having to own up to the fact that he does. And just like that, Corvo decides he won’t give him the satisfaction. He can see the key now. He is just going to grab it and leave.

A lot of things are worse than death, and a lot of people deserve them. 

But as he reaches into the Void to grab the ever-unwinding thread of time and hold it still, he watches Daud over the railing, and sees him _keep moving._ Ah. That’ll teach him to rely on the Outsider’s gifts for anything of real importance.

No more sleep darts, either.

He stands there for a few minutes, waits for him to leave, but Daud just won’t. It’s like he’s stuck. Like he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Like he can feel that Corvo is close and has no idea how to move on until he’s either been murdered or actively spared. And Corvo doesn’t fucking have all day.

Letting the Void carry him onto a tall bookcase and then just behind Daud, he lands as softly as he can and plucks his sword out of its sheath, making a split-second decision, in the time he has left before Daud turns around and this becomes a permanent choice, to throw it out the window, between the bars, and into the water below, because he’s reasonably sure Daud can’t pull things to himself that he can’t see. And Corvo needs a free hand. He folds his own sword and takes a step back.

“Can you understand me?” he signs.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, here it is, ladies, lads, and leviathans. Fueled purely by the five people who wanted it: the second chapter, in which Daud cannot believe what is fucking happening to him.

Death sticks around. If you revel in it, if you chase it, if you make it your whole business model, sooner or later, you’re going to be digging your own grave. But if you don’t, someone else will dig it for you. Daud is not in the market for fresh regrets, as far as his choices are concerned. The stale ones will do.

He thinks that to himself, constantly.

And then he goes and kills Jessamine Kaldwin, and if the Void doesn’t laugh at him, it’s only because it has no sense of humor. Him, the Knife of Dunwall, a shadow of death cutting through the city like the memory of a bad dream through the tranquil morning, just a pawn in someone else’s political game. He doesn’t know whether to be ashamed of himself for having let this happen, or for having thought himself above it.

The fact that he feels anything about it at all has turned him into the subject of mockery and ridicule, although purely in his own mind. The sense of betrayal and the anger are pointless, sure, but then there’s something else, and it’s worse. The feeling that he’s watching the end of an era. That hers is the blood that will cause the red river running at his feet to finally overflow.

She wasn’t special, he tells himself. It’s just imperialist fiction. Even as someone who knows for a fact that gods exist when they reach for him in the dark, he can’t believe there has ever been such a thing as a god-given right to rule. No divine force spawned a throne under Empress Jessamine. An unnatural hierarchy built out of gold did. 

And yet, here he is, watching the world fall apart now that she’s dead.

Ah, fuck, it was already well on its way before, and who’s to say she could’ve fixed it? That doesn’t make him stop wishing he could take it back, though. How many runes would he have to find before he figured out a way to ignore the flow of time pushing on him and move freely against it, like a hagfish swimming upstream?

It wouldn’t be the first time he’s turned his blade against his employer. But it might be the first truly deserved instance.

He doesn’t think Burrows will just get his comeuppance without outside intervention. Men like them don’t. Men like them do whatever they want, entirely free of consequence, until something kills them. There’s nothing in-between. 

Except, apparently, where Corvo Attano is concerned. And after that, Daud really doesn’t know what to think anymore.

If it was really, truly up to him, he would’ve told all the Whalers to stand down. But they know the Royal Protector is coming, and they’re not going to just let him kill their leader. Instead of inspiring them to see him as weak, his choice to spare Billie appears to have instilled in them some new-found respect for Daud. Admiration, even. Maybe. They are going to fight for his life, even if he doesn’t want them to. So it’s easier if they don’t feel like they have to go against his will to do it. It’s easier if he gives orders and they follow them, so he knows where they are. He can only hope Corvo will spare them.

They don’t pull him up on why he let Corvo see where his weapons were, or why he didn’t try harder to keep him locked up. Maybe it’s because they suspect the answer to the second question, and fear the answer to the first. 

Corvo Attano is the man who broke out of fucking Coldridge, and that was before the Void favored him. He knows exactly where that leaves them. There’s no effort they could make to contain him that wouldn’t just be laughable now. As for the other stuff, Daud just wants whatever’s coming for him. He’s tired of waiting.

He imagines it sometimes. Has been since he saw the look in his eye as his empress lay dying. Imagines the steel piercing his throat, cutting off blood flow to his brain, sending him to the Void. He’s also tried to imagine what it would look like for Corvo to let him live, but he can’t.

And he definitely can’t imagine what ends up actually happening.

“Can you understand me?” Attano signs. Daud is so focused on the way the absence of the weight of his sword makes him feel off-balance, and on the sheer shock of the specifics of  _ how _ he came to feel that absence, that he almost misses it, but the gestures are slow and deliberate in a way that feels familiar. The distant sound of metal hitting the water still rings in his ears. He has no idea what to make of this development.

He’s always known the Lord Protector can’t speak. Or won’t speak. The Empire lost its mind for a good few weeks when Jessamine Kaldwin chose a mute commoner from Serkonos as her bodyguard. It was all over the papers. But it’s still strange, experiencing it first-hand. 

“I’m not fluent,” he confesses, still in disbelief about most of it. He used to be. Once. Ages ago, in another life.

The mask betrays nothing. The calloused hands say “Good enough.”

“What is this?” Daud demands, even as he is not in a position to demand anything. “Have you come to say your piece before you kill me? To ask why I took your empress from you? It would do you no good to know. To make me regret it? If you’re been here longer than five minutes, you know it’s not a choice I’d make twice.”

He can’t read anything into the metal skull covering the man’s face, but he can see the change in his posture, feel the shift of his weight against the floorboards, and he knows the comment about Jessamine has stirred something. Maybe that’ll move things along.

But instead of lunging towards him, Attano puts his weapon  _ away _ , and then uses both hands to say “I need your key.”

Daud fails to compose a human-like facial expression in response to this.

“You came all the way here for a key?” He thinks he sounds incredulous. Almost offended. But he’s been told his affect is hard to read when he’s not being sarcastic, so maybe Corvo can’t tell. It doesn’t matter.

“Easiest way out,” comes the answer. And then: “I don’t have time to kill you.”

“I could force your hand,” Daud says, like he’s proving a point, and he can feel the Outsider’s mark burning underneath his glove. It’s true. He could. It’d be easier than anything. He watches Corvo take a step towards the desk, and pulls the key to himself before he can reach it. His fingers curl around it, and it disappears below the leather. Well, now it’s happening.

Corvo signs something that he doesn’t understand, save for a verb.  _ Take _ . Maybe it’s because Daud is riling him up and he’s signing faster than before. Maybe Daud just doesn’t know those words.

“I didn’t catch that,” he says, overly-aware of how absurd this all is.

Corvo walks with a force that makes it feel more like he  _ throws _ his entire body forward. Daud steps back and tightens his grip on the key, but that’s no longer what Corvo wants. He misses Daud by so much that it could only have been on purpose, and stops in front of the desk instead. He grabs the quill laying on the uneven surface and scribbles upside-down, in large block letters, right over Daud’s notes. Then he holds the book up with the rigid motions of someone having to contain a strong violent impulse. The page says “Havelock has Emily”. When he’s sure Daud has read it, he throws it to the ground, in a gesture that tries and fails to perform some restraint, like he sincerely thinks that it’ll help relieve a meaningful portion of the pain he’s got to be in.

He’ll know better in a couple years, if he lives that long.

First the Pendletons, then Delilah, now this. How can one kid get in so much trouble, Daud wonders, but doesn’t, really. This is just what happens to children who end up caught in the schemes of grown men. And this is as much Daud’s own fault as anything.

If Corvo figures telling him the truth might be more effective than just beating him to a pulp and taking the key, then he’s got to have heard at least some of Daud’s ramblings from earlier. So maybe it’s not absurd to imagine, even as the man has no reason to trust him further, that he might.

“Where are they?”

“Old Port District.”

“You can have the key. But there’s a faster way to get there than through the door this opens.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the title. Sue me.

Like him these days, Daud is well and truly outside the law of the Throne. _Unlike_ him, though, he has enough people on his side that he gets to make up his own. When he orders them to scatter and re-wire or turn off everything that runs on whale oil all the way up to Rudshore Gate and beyond it, they don't have to be told twice. The hesitation and confusion (specifically with regard to Corvo’s presence) are apparent on some of them, but only in a way reminiscent of flowers on a grave: superficial and of zero tangible consequence.

Turns out Daud’s key is not the fastest way out of the Flooded District, if you’re the kind of person who regularly has access to Daud’s key.

Corvo watches them work from the top of a barely standing wall, the last artifact of a ruined building that used to be a block of flats with a bakery on the ground floor. He doesn’t like seeing the Walls of Light re-wired. Sooner or later, that _will_ kill someone. But it attracts less attention and gives them more time than switching them off. As previously established, Daud is not the type to avoid collateral victims if it costs him anything, and Corvo doesn’t really want to start an argument on the matter, even though he absolutely should. 

There are some barely-perceptible ripples through the Void, and then a weight settles next to him.

“You can catch the train from there once they’re done.” He points at some scaffolding that sticks out over the rails. 

Corvo’s hands remain still. There’s nothing worth saying. The silence seems to be getting at Daud, though, in a way that he thinks they both find surprising. He doesn’t seem like the kind of person who would develop expectations in this sort of scenario and then be negatively affected when they’re not met. But the truth is, he already has. He _expected_ something of his encounter with Corvo. Most likely a fight to the death. And he’s not getting that, or anything else tangible. So he stands there, like a wound against the grey sky, long after Corvo would have expected him to leave.

“What do you want me to do next?”

 _Get on the first ship out of Gristol and disappear?_ Corvo wants to say. He doesn’t even understand the question. Daud isn’t _taking orders_ from him, not really. He’s _asking_ for something. Depending on how truthful he was being before, it could be a chance to atone. Corvo doesn’t know why it’s his job to provide that. He watches two whalers rush a tallboy like a pair of hornets. The whale oil tanks explode, and its mosquito legs crumple under it, sending it to the ground with a sound that ought to be deafening up close.

“They do good work,” Daud says, noticing where he’s looking. He says it like he knows exactly who he’s talking about, although Corvo has no idea how he could tell them apart. “You should take one with you. Or a couple, if you think you’ll need the backup. The older ones can do everything I can do, but faster and without the joint pain.”

There’s a hint of humor in his words, but to Corvo, it reads like a weird effort to humanize himself. _I may be the monster who ruined your life, but my skeleton decays at the same rate as anyone else’s_. It’s insulting. He shakes his head no.

“Your luck’s going to run out, eventually, and the Outsider won’t save you. Whole world’s a circus to him. He likes watching the acrobats, but he doesn’t flinch when the tightrope snaps.” He sounds like he knows a thing or two about that.

“Why do you care?” Corvo signs.

Daud is quiet for a while. Corvo thinks maybe he didn’t understand the question, but that’s fine. It was rhetorical. He doesn’t care what the answer is. He’s just waiting for a Whaler to get back and tell them he’s good to go on the next train. But if he hopes to do it in silence, he has another thing coming. 

“I’m not the kind of man who thinks he can make the world better. It’s all going to the Void. But she doesn’t deserve what I’ve made her go through.”

“It’s already happened,” Corvo points out.

“Are you _deaf_ , as well as mute, bodyguard?” Daud growls. It’s not threatening, though. It’s tired and distant and quiet, and barely anything at all. “I’m not trying to take anything back. I know what I did. And now I’m trying to do something else. So if you have a use for that, say the word.”

Does he? Does he have a use for it? Does he have a use for the killer of the woman he loved, for the man who put Emily in the hands of the Lord Regent, put her in _danger,_ and toppled an Empire for coin? What does it say about Corvo Attano to accept his help when he doesn’t need it?

Corvo doesn’t trust him. The heart he can summon out of the Void when he wants its wisdom or wants to amplify the howling song of whalebone, and who speaks to him in a voice he knows, but in a way that doesn’t let him put his finger on it, doesn’t trust him either. It sounds terrified when he’s around, and angry, and repulsed. Two of those describe Corvo fairly accurately, too. But trust isn’t really a requirement, here. Daud’s guilt will shoulder the weight just fine. 

He thinks maybe he should want to feel something, anything remotely negative about using him like this, but he doesn’t try very hard to make it happen. His compassion has been spent on Overseers, and watchmen, and hounds, and Whalers, and weepers, and innocent civilians, and men who begged for his help and then turned around and poisoned him. He’s run out of that like he’s run out of sleep darts. All he’s got left is the drive to find Emily, as soon as possible. The rest is Void. And if the fastest way to do that includes Jess’ murderer in any capacity, it no longer makes any difference to him. It’s not going to be _less_ effective at bringing her back than anything else.

“Don’t kill anyone if you can avoid it. Stay where I can see you. Don’t make me say it twice. Repeat it back to me so I know you understand.”

And Daud does, and there isn’t a hint of annoyance or mockery of revolt in his tone. Corvo chooses to believe that the fact that he doesn’t know what to do with that means he doesn’t have to do anything.

  
It’s sort of amazing, he thinks, as he watches the walls of light approach at great speed and then observes his own body’s refusal to sublimate as they pass through, how easy things become when you have the sort of reach and influence Daud does. In his hand, the heart that isn’t there beats faster than it should, slippery against his grip with ever-fresh blood, and it wonders aloud why he’s doing this to it. Corvo knows why, but doesn’t _want_ to know, and so he, too, wonders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know the story progresses slowly but im more interested in how these idiots process their cooperation than in the rest of the narrative cos we've all already played the game.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The third paragraph of the first chapter has received a small edit because I just realized I forgot to mention something that seemed obvious to me but isn't, and which comes into play here

When Corvo signals for him to get off the train above the Old Port District, he’s not in a position to ask any questions about where exactly they’re going, so he doesn’t. He just transverses to the closest rooftop and does his best to keep up without knowing anything about the route or destination. He’s tracked the Lord Protector before, but never this close. In all the books he’s read, he’s never found a word that would accurately describe the strangeness of it.

There’s more guards on the streets than there’s rats now, which Daud finds highly suspicious. Corvo has been so quiet, so surgically precise in his efforts, that he’s pretty sure a lot of these idiots don’t even believe he’s more than an urban legend. They probably think the Empress’ bodyguard drowned in the river after escaping Coldridge, because that’s the last anyone saw of him. But someone would _have_ to be expecting him, to put this much effort into his welcoming committee. Either that, or something else is afoot. 

Corvo doesn’t trust him as far as he can throw him. Whatever he offers to do anything, like rewire a wall of light or distract a watchman, he gets shut down and, in essence, told to just stay close and not murder anyone. Like it’s not a choice he can make, but an aspect of his nature that he must actively fight. Maybe that’s true. It does spark a question in Daud’s mind: why is he here, if not to be useful?

Just behind him, on the street below, something explodes. It’s a terrible sound, followed immediately by mechanical whirring. He doesn’t turn around, because whatever it is, it’s not in the direction Corvo has decided they’re going, so he doesn’t care, but then something sets his peripheral vision on fire and darts over his shoulder. He could almost liken it to a shooting star, if it shared any of the indolent grace of the fluid falling motion, instead of appearing intent to rip through anything it hits. Which, he realizes in the split-second he has to try and estimate its trajectory, is about to be Corvo. He could blink out of the way, but it’s not really a chance Daud is willing to take on his behalf, and there’s only one other thing he can think to do.

Less like obeying an order and more like making a concession, the Void curls its tendrils around what Daud now understands as a misfired tallboy projectile and forces a narrow curve in its path until it’s headed straight for him. He dodges it with relative ease and then his eyes find Corvo again, several buildings over, none the wiser as he dives into an unprepared guard like the world’s quietest bloodfly and smashes the poor bastard’s skull against the balcony railing before shoving his unconscious body through the open door.

And then the answer comes to Daud in the moment of stillness before he catches up to him. Curls down his throat like cigarette smoke. Settles in his chest so light-footed it’s downright suspect.

He’s not being asked to _give_ something, but to _take._ He’s here so that, should anything go wrong, should Havelock best them, should Emily get hurt, or worse, Corvo won’t have to feel or carry his own guilt. Some part of him wants to do more with that thought, but there’s nothing left except to swallow it.

When Corvo motions for him to stay outside and then disappears inside an abandoned pub, when it becomes obvious that he knows the place like the back of his hand and must have been here multiple times before, Daud wants to laugh. A literal straight line boat ride across the river away from the Lord Regent, the entire time! He can see the tower from where he stands, blue and grey as he looks at it through fog and through Void. It’s absurd and brilliant and meaningless, and he wishes he could pick one single way to feel about it, but he can’t.

And then Corvo’s back, and he’s alone. Emily’s not here, and from the lack of blood on his sword, neither is Havelock. Corvo must know he’s figured it out, because he doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, he draws Daud’s attention to a building in the yard with a wide overhead door that’s bolted to the ground.

“I need to get in there,” he signs. 

Through the wall, Daud can see two figures huddled underneath the benches of a workshop. He would assume they’re allies of Corvo’s, but if they’re on the same team as the men who sent him floating down the river only slightly more alive than a pickled eel, it’s up for debate. All the same to him, though. 

The windows are barred, there’s no way to silently get through either door, and the premises are crawling with guards. He’s solved bigger problems with fewer resources. 

He transverses to a bridge made of sheet metal and scaffolding that connects a barely standing tower to the main building of the pub. From there, he sets his sights on a tallboy, and the narrow horizontal oil tank embedded into the bottom of its chassis comes loose on command. The seal at the top is imperfect, and its contents leak at a steady pace on their way to him, so vibrant that even their eventual landing in the unsuspecting dirt of the courtyard can’t do anything to dull their tormenting luminescence. So bright that they look like pin pricks in the linen the world is painted on. 

A second later, he’s on top of the gate. From there, he throws it as hard as he can to the far end of the street, in a long, graceful arch, and the light coming off of it has the quality of smoke. It teases with the suggestion of tangibility. It convinces you that, if only you never needed to draw breath again, you could hold it captive in your lungs forever, in a way one could never imprison light alone. It lingers and coils and sways. 

It hits the edge of a dumpster and explodes, and the promises it was making disappear in the fire, just like all the other garbage. 

It’s extremely effective at distracting a significant portion of the guards present without killing a single one, and it’s more effort than Daud has _ever_ put into sparing a life, past few weeks notwithstanding, but he can still feel Corvo’s disapproval as they make quick work of the men still below them, piling unconscious bodies in the shadows, before he disappears back up the street to take care of the rest and let him do whatever he needs to. He knows too well where they stand to expect anything else.

When he comes back, the workshop door is open, and outside, in the now empty, quiet yard, stand two men. 

One of them, Daud immediately recognizes as the Royal Physician. It’s hard to mistake that ridiculous beard and self-important attitude for anyone else’s. He’s talking at Corvo with the affect of a lecturer at the Academy, instead of that of a man who has just spent a significant length of time hiding under a table from whatever justice the City Watch might have seen fit to serve.

The other one seems noticeably more shaken, although he’s pretending not to be. But Daud’s been doing this too long to be fooled. He looks like a rat, he thinks, if someone had stretched him out with a rolling pin. He looks like someone Daud might agree to kill for the equivalent in coin of a loaf of bread, on request from some terrified young girl. He looks up, and his posture stiffens. Daud knows he’s been seen. The stretched-out rat turns to Corvo to say something, and then turns white as chalk when Daud lands in front of him and the Lord Protector seems utterly unwilling to do anything in the way of protecting anybody. He’s rendered momentarily unable to string words together, but everything slots very neatly into place in Daud’s mind: he doesn’t know the real scope of this begrudging collaboration. He’s afraid Corvo has come back to kill them, and brought reinforcements. He scoffs, and the sound seems to startle Piero—that’s his name, according to Sokolov—whose back is pressed up against the wall so hard now, that it seems like he’s trying to go through it.

“Gentlemen—Corvo,” he stutters, eyes darting frantically from one of the men in front of him to the other, “there surely is no need for such a barbaric resolution to this entire affair, I—I assure you I had nothing to do with this sordid plot, I’m reasonably sure Havelock would’ve killed Sokolov and I just the same if—”

“Calm down,” Corvo signs, for about the fifth time.

Daud figures he’s probably not being very helpful, just standing there in complete silence, staring them down, so he chimes in.

“He doesn’t need my help killing anyone.”

Piero looks at him like he doesn’t see why the inability to qualify their slaughter as necessity or obligation would have any effect on anything, and that’s fair. Sokolov looks at him with scientific interest, as if _today,_ he’s very aware of all the power Daud could have over him, and walks very carefully around it, but _tomorrow_ , if anything changed, he might consider splitting him open just to see what makes him tick.

Daud does not appreciate being studied.

A moment later, Corvo disappears again. He’s sure he hasn’t missed any hint that they were leaving, so he just waits, trying to figure out what in the Void he’s supposed to be doing. He’s not one for small-talk, and he doesn’t exactly feel a terrible need to explain his presence, either, so he decides to patrol the yard, just to make sure nobody wakes up and starts causing trouble. 

While he’s pacing about, inventorying bodies, he finds himself playing a mental game of trying to figure out which are his and which are Corvo’s. It’s not very hard. If they’re bleeding, or if their extremities stick out at unnatural angles, like something is broken, then they’re probably Daud’s handiwork. If they look like they’re sleeping, like they were laid down gently rather than being allowed to crumple and drop six feet like it’s nothing, they’re probably Corvo’s. Every now and again, there’s one that’s hard to pin, like the body lying in a heap in one of the non-flaming dumpsters, which he doesn’t remember either of them doing. But overall, the theme seems to be that Corvo rarely finds himself above the line of strictly necessary violence, and Daud rarely finds himself below it. He’s got no idea how the man still retains the patience for this sort of shit.

He takes a right turn and he’s back in front of a workshop again. Sokolov is off somewhere, he notes, distantly. Piero still doesn’t seem to have realized he’s free to move. Daud almost considers firing his last resort sleep dart into the man’s shoulder, just to stop having him be so hyper-aware of Daud’s every move. It’s unnerving. Eventually, he does something else with it instead. Holds it up to the light so he can see it. He doesn’t seem to know whether to interpret it as a threat.

“How fast can you make more of these?”

Tentatively, Piero approaches and reaches out with spidery fingers. Waits for Daud to hand the dart over, not daring to just grab it. Generally, that’s a smart move.

“These are built almost exactly according to my first blueprint from several years ago,” he observes, and the surprise makes his voice breathy and grating. “Down to the stabilizing mechanism, which I haven’t used in anything else since.”

“One of my men probably stole it from you,” Daud says, by way of an explanation, not managing to sound particularly guilty.

“Well, I must thank him, then. It forced me to innovate.” The passive aggression is tangible. “Unfortunately, that means it would take me hours to replicate this model now. The tools in my workshop are calibrated so I can produce the newer variant as fast as possible. Corvo appreciates having them on hand. Adjusting the machinery alone would take me the whole day.”

“Right. Never mind,” Daud says. They don’t have the whole day.

“What do you fire them out of?” Piero seems unable to let the subject go, now. Serves him right. He should’ve kept his mouth shut.

“This,” he says, extending his arm to reveal the wristbow. Piero’s eyes widen, lighting up like the sky lanterns above the Boyle Estate, and he forgets every bit of the common sense he displayed earlier, grabbing Daud’s arm like he’s about to eat it, borderline desperate to figure out what it is and how it works.

“Fascinating,” he breathes out. “What a veritable marvel of engineering!” He makes a move to turn it so he can see better, but he can probably sense that Daud is considering punching him in the gut if he tries, because he stops. “It’s so compact!” He sounds almost giddy. “I can’t believe I never thought of anything like this.”

 _I can,_ Daud thinks, but doesn’t say.

“I could modify the mechanism to allow it to accept both shapes with ease. It would take far less time.”

Daud weighs his options. He’s not sure he wants to hand off his best piece of equipment to some guy he doesn’t know or trust, but it’s looking like Piero was behind Corvo’s gear, too, and they’re some of the most impressive weapons he has ever seen, so he can’t be _that_ incompetent.

He unbuckles it, and it falls in his other hand.

“Don’t fuck it up.”

He watches the man take off with it, like a hound trying to make its way back to its kennel with a stolen sausage, but then a hissing sound makes him turn around and draws his gaze up to the side of the crumbling tower, where he can see a red flare streak across the pale sky. It’s a signal for someone. He doesn’t know who, but he’s starting to get used to not knowing. And then, just like that, Corvo’s back. Looking at the tower through the lens of the Void, Daud can tell someone is in there, but he doesn’t ask. They don’t look dead, and even that is a little more information than he needs.

“Going out by boat,” Corvo signs.

“You know where she is?”

There’s a pause, and Daud almost thinks he’s not going to tell him, maybe doesn’t even want him to come, in which case he doesn’t _need_ to know, but then his hands are moving again.

“You wouldn’t know the word.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't a chapter so much as a teaser for the next chapter because I really wanted to stick to the back-and-forth format. Hope it tides you over.

As he watches the boat pull up to the shore, Corvo wonders, distantly, what Samuel might say about Daud’s presence, but when they go to board, he seems to not even know who Daud is. Then again, he also seemed not to know Corvo was going to get poisoned, so maybe he’s just very good at pretending.

“You’ve brought backup, sir? That’s good,” he says, in a tone that seems about as hard for Daud to read as it is for him. And that’s the end of that. He doesn’t ask either of them any questions. He just talks about the history of the lighthouse as the boat glides peacefully along, like the river doesn’t even know what’s happening around it. There’s no reason behind it other than it’s something he knows, and it’s one way to pass the time. Time passes anyway, but he suspects this is how Sam makes himself feel in control as it’s happening. 

Corvo’s ears are wired to pick up information about secret tunnels, back alley entrances and who has what key to what door, but there’s nothing like that in the boatman’s story, so with everything else going on in his head, trying to keep track of it is like trying to make it up a spiral staircase blind-folded and drunk, where you don’t so much  _ walk  _ as the surface you’re on moves away from and back towards you arbitrarily.

And then the narrow boat hits the shore of Kingsparrow Island, and that’s it.

“Good luck,” says Samuel. “If anyone deserves it, it’s you.” Corvo can’t pick up on any regret in his voice. Whatever guilt he might’ve felt over poisoning him, even deliberately half-assed as that was, he has quite clearly already dealt with it. Corvo wishes he could do that.

The small vessel disappears behind the rocks, and then it’s just him, and the bridge, and the lighthouse.

And Daud, who’s speaking.

“Should clean the place out,” he says. “Don’t want anyone causing trouble on your way back. Little Empress doesn’t need to see what you do to people who get in your way.”

_Where does he get off,_ Corvo thinks. 

“She didn’t need to see her mother get murdered, either.”

Daud  _ stops  _ for just slightly too long, and for a moment, Corvo wonders if maybe he didn’t understand. Considers whether he even wants to repeat himself. But the assassin doesn’t give him enough time to even get to the end of that thought, much less make a decision.

“I’ll take care of it. Just go.”

Maybe he’s been desensitized to it over the course of the day, but at this point, trusting Daud not to fuck him over while he’s not looking doesn’t seem like that much of a leap anymore. He barely hesitates for a second, and then he’s off. 

All he can see is the lighthouse. He holds onto the image of it like an attack hound onto the padded sleeve of a bite suit, except there’s no release command for Corvo Attano. He barely registers the bodies folding like sheets at the edge of his field of vision. Calculating the path of least resistance, the fastest way through, takes over his entire brain. Over the walls, along the cables, through the top hatch of the elevator and up. He knows exactly how he’ll stay out of sight of every guard, how he’ll cut through their defenses as silently as a hagfish through water. He can see every step of the way.

Until he can’t see anything.

He becomes aware, with some delay, of the short-lived shooting pain in his side. Something small and irritating, like a bee sting. Everything slows down so abruptly he thinks he  _ must  _ be using his magic, even as he knows he isn't. He tries to hold onto his thoughts, but they drip between his fingers like honey, in that they stick to him, but never in meaningful amounts. Unprompted, a long lost memory of being grabbed by his ankles and spun around as a toddler stirs within him. The world tilts sharply, and he fades.


End file.
